by Walter Scott
CHAPTER XXVII
If thou hast any love of mercy in thee, Turn me upon my face that I may die.
JOANNA BALLIE.
Our traveller hired a post-chaise at the place where he separated fromDinmont, with the purpose of proceeding to Kippletringan, there toinquire into the state of the family at Woodbourne, before he shouldventure to make his presence in the country known to Miss Mannering.The stage was a long one of eighteen or twenty miles, and the road layacross the country. To add to the inconveniences of the journey, thesnow began to fall pretty quickly. The postilion, however, proceeded onhis journey for a good many miles without expressing doubt orhesitation. It was not until the night was completely set in that heintimated his apprehensions whether he was in the right road. Theincreasing snow rendered this intimation rather alarming, for, as itdrove full in the lad's face and lay whitening all around him, itserved in two different ways to confuse his knowledge of the country,and to diminish the chance of his recovering the right track. Brownthen himself got out and looked round, not, it may be well imagined,from any better hope than that of seeing some house at which he mightmake inquiry. But none appeared; he could therefore only tell the ladto drive steadily on. The road on which they were ran throughplantations of considerable extent and depth, and the travellertherefore conjectured that there must be a gentleman's house at nogreat distance. At length, after struggling wearily on for about amile, the post-boy stopped, and protested his horses would not budge afoot farther; 'but he saw,' he said, 'a light among the trees, whichmust proceed from a house; the only way was to inquire the road there.'Accordingly, he dismounted, heavily encumbered with a long great-coatand a pair of boots which might have rivalled in thickness theseven-fold shield of Ajax. As in this guise he was plodding forth uponhis voyage of discovery, Brown's impatience prevailed, and, jumping outof the carriage, he desired the lad to stop where he was by the horses,and he would himself go to the house; a command which the driver mostjoyfully obeyed.
Our traveller groped along the side of the inclosure from which thelight glimmered, in order to find some mode of approaching in thatdirection, and, after proceeding for some space, at length found astile in the hedge, and a pathway leading into the plantation, which inthat place was of great extent. This promised to lead to the lightwhich was the object of his search, and accordingly Brown proceeded inthat direction, but soon totally lost sight of it among the trees. Thepath, which at first seemed broad and well marked by the opening of thewood through which it winded, was now less easily distinguishable,although the whiteness of the snow afforded some reflected light toassist his search. Directing himself as much as possible through themore open parts of the wood, he proceeded almost a mile without eitherrecovering a view of the light or seeing anything resembling ahabitation. Still, however, he thought it best to persevere in thatdirection. It must surely have been a light in the hut of a forester,for it shone too steadily to be the glimmer of an ignis fatuus. Theground at length became broken and declined rapidly, and, althoughBrown conceived he still moved along what had once at least been apathway, it was now very unequal, and the snow concealing thosebreaches and inequalities, the traveller had one or two falls inconsequence. He began now to think of turning back, especially as thefalling snow, which his impatience had hitherto prevented his attendingto, was coming on thicker and faster.
Willing, however, to make a last effort, he still advanced a littleway, when to his great delight he beheld the light opposite at no greatdistance, and apparently upon a level with him. He quickly found thatthis last appearance was deception, for the ground continued so rapidlyto sink as made it obvious there was a deep dell, or ravine of somekind, between him and the object of his search. Taking every precautionto preserve his footing, he continued to descend until he reached thebottom of a very steep and narrow glen, through which winded a smallrivulet, whose course was then almost choked with snow. He now foundhimself embarrassed among the ruins of cottages, whose black gables,rendered more distinguishable by the contrast with the whitened surfacefrom which they rose, were still standing; the side-walls had longsince given way to time, and, piled in shapeless heaps and covered withsnow, offered frequent and embarrassing obstacles to our traveller'sprogress. Still, however, he persevered, crossed the rivulet, notwithout some trouble, and at length, by exertions which became bothpainful and perilous, ascended its opposite and very rugged bank, untilhe came on a level with the building from which the gleam proceeded.
It was difficult, especially by so imperfect a light, to discover thenature of this edifice; but it seemed a square building of small size,the upper part of which was totally ruinous. It had, perhaps, been theabode in former times of some lesser proprietor, or a place of strengthand concealment, in case of need, for one of greater importance. Butonly the lower vault remained, the arch of which formed the roof in thepresent state of the building. Brown first approached the place fromwhence the light proceeded, which was a long narrow slit or loop-hole,such as usually are to be found in old castles. Impelled by curiosityto reconnoitre the interior of this strange place before he entered,Brown gazed in at this aperture. A scene of greater desolation couldnot well be imagined. There was a fire upon the floor, the smoke ofwhich, after circling through the apartment, escaped by a hole brokenin the arch above. The walls, seen by this smoky light, had the rudeand waste appearance of a ruin of three centuries old at least. A caskor two, with some broken boxes and packages, lay about the place inconfusion. But the inmates chiefly occupied Brown's attention. Upon alair composed of straw, with a blanket stretched over it, lay a figure,so still that, except that it was not dressed in the ordinaryhabiliments of the grave, Brown would have concluded it to be a corpse.On a steadier view he perceived it was only on the point of becomingso, for he heard one or two of those low, deep, and hard-drawn sighsthat precede dissolution when the frame is tenacious of life. A femalefigure, dressed in a long cloak, sate on a stone by this miserablecouch; her elbows rested upon her knees, and her face, averted from thelight of an iron lamp beside her, was bent upon that of the dyingperson. She moistened his mouth from time to time with some liquid, andbetween whiles sung, in a low monotonous cadence, one of those prayers,or rather spells, which, in some parts of Scotland and the north ofEngland, are used by the vulgar and ignorant to speed the passage of aparting spirit, like the tolling of the bell in Catholic days. Sheaccompanied this dismal sound with a slow rocking motion of her body toand fro, as if to keep time with her song. The words ran nearly thus:--
Wasted, weary, wherefore stay, Wrestling thus with earth and clay? From the body pass away. Hark! the mass is singing.
From thee doff thy mortal weed, Mary Mother be thy speed, Saints to help thee at thy need. Hark! the knell is ringing.
Fear not snow-drift driving fast, Sleet, or hail, or levin blast. Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast, And the sleep be on thee cast That shall ne'er know waking.
Haste thee, haste thee, to be gone, Earth flits fast, and time draws on. Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan, Day is near the breaking.
The songstress paused, and was answered by one or two deep and hollowgroans, that seemed to proceed from the very agony of the mortalstrife. 'It will not be,' she muttered to herself; 'he cannot pass awaywith that on his mind, it tethers him here--
Heaven cannot abide it, Earth refuses to hide it. [Footnote: See Note 6.]
I must open the door'; and, rising, she faced towards the door of theapartment, observing heedfully not to turn back her head, and,withdrawing a bolt or two (for, notwithstanding the miserableappearance of the place, the door was cautiously secured), she liftedthe latch, saying,
Open lock, end strife, Come death, and pass life.
Brown, who had by this time moved from his post, stood before her asshe opened the door. She stepped back a pace, and he entered, instantlyrecognising, but with no comfortable sensat
ion, the same gipsy womanwhom he had met in Bewcastle. She also knew him at once, and herattitude, figure, and the anxiety of her countenance, assumed theappearance of the well-disposed ogress of a fairy tale, warning astranger not to enter the dangerous castle of her husband. The firstwords she spoke (holding up her hands in a reproving manner) were,'Said I not to ye, Make not, meddle not? Beware of the redding straik![Footnote: The redding straik, namely, a blow received by a peacemakerwho interferes betwixt two combatants, to red or separate them, isproverbially said to be the most dangerous blow a man can receive.] Youare come to no house o' fair-strae death.' So saying, she raised thelamp and turned its light on the dying man, whose rude and harshfeatures were now convulsed with the last agony. A roll of linen abouthis head was stained with blood, which had soaked also through theblankets and the straw. It was, indeed, under no natural disease thatthe wretch was suffering. Brown started back from this horrible object,and, turning to the gipsy, exclaimed, 'Wretched woman, who has donethis?'
'They that were permitted,' answered Meg Merrilies, while she scannedwith a close and keen glance the features of the expiring man. 'He hashad a sair struggle; but it's passing. I kenn'd he would pass when youcame in. That was the death-ruckle; he's dead.'
Sounds were now heard at a distance, as of voices. 'They are coming,'said she to Brown; 'you are a dead man if ye had as mony lives ashairs.' Brown eagerly looked round for some weapon of defence. Therewas none near. He then rushed to the door with the intention ofplunging among the trees, and making his escape by flight from what henow esteemed a den of murderers, but Merrilies held him with amasculine grasp. 'Here,' she said, 'here, be still and you are safe;stir not, whatever you see or hear, and nothing shall befall you.'
Brown, in these desperate circumstances, remembered this woman'sintimation formerly, and thought he had no chance of safety but inobeying her. She caused him to couch down among a parcel of straw onthe opposite side of the apartment from the corpse, covered himcarefully, and flung over him two or three old sacks which lay aboutthe place. Anxious to observe what was to happen, Brown arranged assoftly as he could the means of peeping from under the coverings bywhich he was hidden, and awaited with a throbbing heart the issue ofthis strange and most unpleasant adventure. The old gipsy in themeantime set about arranging the dead body, composing its limbs, andstraighting the arms by its side. 'Best to do this,' she muttered, 'erehe stiffen.' She placed on the dead man's breast a trencher, with saltsprinkled upon it, set one candle at the head and another at the feetof the body, and lighted both. Then she resumed her song, and awaitedthe approach of those whose voices had been heard without.
Brown was a soldier, and a brave one; but he was also a man, and atthis moment his fears mastered his courage so completely that the colddrops burst out from every pore. The idea of being dragged out of hismiserable concealment by wretches whose trade was that of midnightmurder, without weapons or the slightest means of defence, exceptentreaties, which would be only their sport, and cries for help, whichcould never reach other ear than their own; his safety entrusted to theprecarious compassion of a being associated with these felons, andwhose trade of rapine and imposture must have hardened her againstevery human feeling--the bitterness of his emotions almost choked him.He endeavoured to read in her withered and dark countenance, as thelamp threw its light upon her features, something that promised thosefeelings of compassion which females, even in their most degradedstate, can seldom altogether smother. There was no such touch ofhumanity about this woman. The interest, whatever it was, thatdetermined her in his favour arose not from the impulse of compassion,but from some internal, and probably capricious, association offeelings, to which he had no clue. It rested, perhaps, on a fanciedlikeness, such as Lady Macbeth found to her father in the sleepingmonarch. Such were the reflections that passed in rapid successionthrough Brown's mind as he gazed from his hiding-place upon thisextraordinary personage. Meantime the gang did not yet approach, and hewas almost prompted to resume his original intention of attempting anescape from the hut, and cursed internally his own irresolution, whichhad consented to his being cooped up where he had neither room forresistance nor flight.
Meg Merrilies seemed equally on the watch. She bent her ear to everysound that whistled round the old walls. Then she turned again to thedead body, and found something new to arrange or alter in its position.'He's a bonny corpse,' she muttered to herself, 'and weel worth thestreaking.' And in this dismal occupation she appeared to feel a sortof professional pleasure, entering slowly into all the minutise, as ifwith the skill and feelings of a connoisseur. A long, dark-colouredsea-cloak, which she dragged out of a corner, was disposed for a pall.The face she left bare, after closing the mouth and eyes, and arrangedthe capes of the cloak so as to hide the bloody bandages, and give thebody, as she muttered, 'a mair decent appearance.'
At once three or four men, equally ruffians in appearance and dress,rushed into the hut. 'Meg, ye limb of Satan, how dare you leave thedoor open?' was the first salutation of the party.
'And wha ever heard of a door being barred when a man was in thedead-thraw? how d'ye think the spirit was to get awa through bolts andbars like thae?'
'Is he dead, then?' said one who went to the side of the couch to lookat the body.
'Ay, ay, dead enough,' said another; 'but here's what shall give him arousing lykewake.' So saying, he fetched a keg of spirits from acorner, while Meg hastened to display pipes and tobacco. From theactivity with which she undertook the task, Brown conceived good hopeof her fidelity towards her guest. It was obvious that she wished toengage the ruffians in their debauch, to prevent the discovery whichmight take place if by accident any of them should approach too nearlythe place of Brown's concealment.
